Petronella leaned to see.  “Indeed you do not.  Good for you.”  Petronella’s skinny neck swiveled back to Jordan.  “I saw you at my poetry reading and…”

Jordan cut her off, “We came to see the show.  You just happened to be there.”

“Be that as it may.  You observed what happened, am I correct?”

“Yes, I saw,” Jordan said.  “It was quite colorful.”

Petronella ignored the obvious pun.  “Did you see the reviews?” she inquired.

“If you mean those little ezine-online thingies, not really,” Jordan said.

“And the City Pages and the Arts and Entertainment section,” Petronella added.

“Yeah, whatever,” Jordan said.

Petronella pulled out a chair and sat.  “I need your help.”

“First, what could you possibly want from me?” Jordan asked.  “And secondly, why should I do anything for you?”

Petronella ignored the questions.  Which was not unusual.  If she didn’t want to know about something, she ignored its existence.  Just like she was ignoring Amy right at the moment.  Petronella scooted her chair several inches closer to Jordan.  “I need your little inventor friend… what is her name, Einstein?”

“Edison,” Jordan corrected.

“Yes, of course.  I need Edison to build me a machine.”

“What kind of machine?” Jordan asked.  She wondered if it was too much to hope for Petronella wanting a time machine to blast her back into the past.  Or the future. Or anywhere but here.

“A machine like the one that attacked me last night.”

Jordan paled.  “Why?”  She squirmed in her chair.  Did Petronella know she was responsible for the paint-spraying incident?  Was she playing some type of game, hoping to trap Jordan into admitting her culpability?  Jordan looked to Amy for help.  But Amy was nervously stuffing blue-corn tortilla chips in her mouth.

Petronella continued, “I tried to find the machine after the show.  I was going to gather up the parts and see if Einstein could put them back together.  But, unfortunately, the terrorists made off with it before I could.”

“Terrorists?” Amy said through a mouth full of blue goo.

“Yes,” Petronella said.  She had the gleam of a zealot in her eyes.

“Terrorists for what?” Jordan said.

“There are certain people, Jordan, who wish to see me harmed.”

“Really?” Jordan said, trying hard to appear appalled at such a thing.  “Who would want that?”  Besides me, she added inside her own head.

“People who dislike poetry,” Petronella said like it was obvious.  “Republican people, no doubt.  But their little plan backfired.”

“It did?” Amy chirped up.

Petronella did not look at her.  “The audience loved the paint splattering.  They thought it was part of the show.  My reviews were fantastic.  There is talk of short-listing me for the Nobel.”

Amy choked on a chip.  Petronella glared at her.  Amy smiled weakly and thumped herself on the chest.  “Sorry.  Wrong pipe.”

Jordan smirked.

“So,” Petronella continued, “I would like your little friend to build me another paint machine.  I will go on tour with it.  I will call it my Rainbow Tour.”

“What a fantastic idea!” Jordan said.  The thought of Petronella being on tour and out of her life was too good to be true.  Wait, Jordan thought, what if it really is too good to be true? “For realsies?” she asked.

“Yes,” Petronella said.  “For realsies.”

“When would you be leaving on this tour?”

“As soon as I get the paint machine.”

“I’ll call Einstein, I mean, Edison, today.”

Petronella smiled and stood. “Contact me after you have talked to her.  You know my number.”

Jordan and Amy watched Petronella as she left.  No sooner had the door closed behind her than Edison entered through the back door.  She saw Jordan and hurried over to the table.  Skipping hellos entirely, Edison panted, “Was she here?”

“Petronella?” Jordan asked.

Edison nodded, trying to catch her breath.  “Who else?  I’ve been following her, but I lost her about a mile back.  I invented a motorized bicycle, you know, for the lazy cyclist so they wouldn’t have to pedal up hills, but I think I ran out of gas.  Do you know how heavy one of those bikes are when you have to pedal?”  She wheezed a couple of times and sucked in a giant lungful of oxygen before continuing, “I lost her, but figured she was headed here.”

“You just missed her,” Jordan said.

“Motorized bicycles have already been invented,” Amy said.

Edison sat in Petronella’s vacant chair.  “They have?  Are you sure?”

“Yeah, pretty sure,” Amy said.

Edison looked downcast.  “Damn.  All the good inventions are already taken.”

Jordan leaned across the table until her nose was six inches from Edison’s nose.  “Guess what?  Petronella wants you to invent a paint car just like the one that sprayed her.”

Edison looked confused.  “I invented the one that did spray her.”

“She doesn’t know that,” Jordan said.  “She wants to take it on tour.  Build another one and Petronella will be out of my hair forever.  Can you do it?”

“Of course,” Edison said.

“If you build it, she will go,” Amy said.


Congress of Cow

Amy walked into the house and was immediately engulfed by the aroma of curry emanating from the kitchen.  She followed her nose to the source, expecting to find Isabel.  Instead, she found Jeremy stirring something in a saucepan and reading a book - both very unnatural things for him.

“You’re cooking?” Amy said.

“Actually, I’m only babysitting.  I have strict orders to not stop stirring.”

Amy peered into the pot and saw something green and lumpy.  She was no expert, but she knew enough to know that wasn’t a good sign.  “What is that?”

“It’s Saag Paneer.  Or will be when it’s done,” Jeremy said, not looking up from the book he was holding.  He cocked his head and then turned the book upside down and squinted his eyes.

“It’s what?” Amy said, taking the wooden spoon from him and giving the goop a good poke.  It had the consistency of something found in a touch pool at the aquarium.  She felt the urge to do it again, the way kids like to poke dead things with a stick.

“Saag Paneer is Indian for green slime.  It’s essentially cooked spinach with this Indian cheese stuff.  The sauce is supposed to be thinner than this but he ran out of coconut milk.  He went out to get it.  He’s making you dinner.”

“He?  He who?” Amy asked with a note of panic.

“Chad he, that’s who.  You know a man’s in love when he starts cooking dinner.”

“What!”  Amy said, dropping the spoon and splattering green stuff everywhere.

“Seriously, the dude’s got it bad for you.  He was like so down about what happened at lunch that he took an express cooking class this afternoon to woo you back.  The only class they had available was Indian cooking.  Hence, the green slime.”

“That’s just great.  I thought I could spend an evening alone with you and Isabel.  I had something important to tell you both and…” her voice trailed off when she realized Jeremy was more interested in his book than in what she was saying.  “What’re you reading?”

“The Kama Sutra.  Talk about a real eye-opener.”

Amy looked over his shoulder at the drawing he had been studying.  “That’s not even humanly possible.”

“Apparently, it is.  Those bodies are drawn to scale.  I think you just have to be really limber.”

“Why do you even have this?” Amy made some deductions and she hoped she was wrong about all of them.

“It’s not mine.  It’s Chad’s.  He bought it with the cookbook.  He’s boning up on some new positions to try out on you.”  He laughed.  “Boning up.  Get it?”

“Not funny.  This is wrong on so many levels I don’t know where to start,” Amy said.

“No, I think the dude is right on target.  His plan is to feed you and then fuck you like…” he shows her a picture in the book, “a congress of cow.”

“That is so not going to happen.”

“You prefer him to fuck you like a panda?”

“Jeremy, there is going to be no fucking – panda, cow or any other animal.”

“He’s going to be totally bummed out.  What’re you going to tell him?”

“Good question.”  She could call Jordan and have her call back with some fake emergency.  Amy bit her lip.  In theory that was a good plan but maybe the wrong person.  Jordan was already skittish about Chad.  Amy didn’t want to make it any weirder.  She thought some more.  Her mother!  She’d be perfect.  Who can deny the call of a sick mother?  And it would have the added benefit of not looking like she was rebuffing him because the rebuff strategy was backfiring.  It was making Chad more ardent than ever.

“Do you think that Chad thinks I’m trying to play ‘hard to get’ and that’s why he’s trying so hard to get me?”

Jeremy stared back at her.  “Could you put that in like man-speak?”

Men and women were not of the same species despite the claims of science, Amy had concluded.  She tried again.  “That’s what you told me once.  That he thinks I’m playing hard to get.”

“Yes, and he likes it.”

“So if I acted like I wanted him then would he go away?”

“No, he’d totally marry you.”

“And then cheat on you the day after,” Isabel said, entering the kitchen.  She was carrying a bag of groceries with celery sticking out of the top and something moving in the bottom.

“What’s in the bag?” Amy asked.

“A live lobster which I really need to get into some water,” Isabel said, setting the bag down on the counter.  She peered into the pot on the stove.  She took the wooden spoon from Jeremy and poked the green, lumpy stuff.  “What is this?”

“Saag Paneer,” Jeremy said.

“It needs more coconut milk.”